(Author's Notes: I just re-discovered this drabble which I wrote all the way back in 2005, for hobbit_ficathon.  I did not post it here at the time, as it contained a slight spoiler for "The Road to Edoras". Then I forgot all about it.)

BERILAC BRANDYBUCK MEETS THE ENTS

So.

Those are Ents. Merry and Pippin told me, but I have to confess I only half-believed. On the one hand was the evidence of my own eyes. Pippin might have had a late growth spurt--although at twenty-nine that’s very late indeed. But Merry? At thirty-seven?

It was their descriptions of “tree shepherds”, that I never quite believed--living near the Old Forest, I could accept trees moving. But walking and talking? Yet there they are, and glad enough to greet us as kindred and friends of Merry and Pippin.

But I don’t think I shall accept any drinks from them.